This evening following seeing the Lancasters "Thumper" and "Vera" followed by B-17 "Sally B" today at the Duxford airshow (watched from a field just off flight line) I am given to wonder the following.

Supposing each type also including the Halifax and Liberator were on a mission to Essen in the Ruhr valley and also seperately to Berlin what would the comparative bomb loads carried?

For the B-17 the Berlin load would most likely be 12 x 500lb or 6 x 1000lb = 6000lb. For the Ruhr they may be able to carry 8000lb - 8 x 1000lb, but I'm not sure whether they coudl carry that weight in 500lb bombs (not enough stations).

This evening following seeing the Lancasters "Thumper" and "Vera" followed by B-17 "Sally B" today at the Duxford airshow (watched from a field just off flight line) I am given to wonder the following.

Supposing each type also including the Halifax and Liberator were on a mission to Essen in the Ruhr valley and also seperately to Berlin what would the comparative bomb loads carried?

I throw my thought to the might of the assembled experts.

Click to expand...

Typical Lancaster bombloads to The Ruhr were on the order of 10-14,000 lb, depending on what the target and mission was.

Area bombing would usually be 12-14 x 1,000 lbs GP (MC) bombs or 10-14 1000 lbs Small Bomb Containers.

Blast/area missions would usually be 1 x 4,000 HC bomb and a combination of GP bombs and SBCs/incendiaries, usually up to about 14,000 lb.

This was the maximum bomb load for a B-17 compared to 22,000lbs for an admittedly modified Lancaster. Around 4-5,000lbs was a far more typical operational load for the B-17, according to Freeman. A late war B-17 was also carrying well over 6,000lbs of defensive armour, machine guns, turrets and ammunition for which bomb load was sacrificed, not something that Bomber Command worried about.

14,000lbs was the maximum load for a service Lancaster and they carried your stated 12-14,000lbs whenever possible.( Both Mason and McKinstry.)